Beyond my World
by Torscha
Summary: Yukino's flashback in semi-literate prose. C&C please.


Beyond My World   
  
by Torscha (dhu_aoi@yahoo.com)   
  
Standard copyright information applies. Gatekeepers and characters property   
of GONZO and whoever created them, I suppose. Obviously used without   
permission.   
  
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i I hope he likes it. I spent so much time making sure he will remember me,   
the way I look now... /i She adjusted the flower in her hair, so that it   
sat just right, a glowing garnet set against the onyx fall of her hair.   
  
i It'll be a long time until he sees me again... He must remember me! /i   
  
"Yukino-chan?"   
  
She looked up from where she stood, in the stand of sakura trees on their   
family's estate. "Onii-sama."   
  
i He's so handsome... /i   
  
Her older brother smiled down at her, his face, formerly drawn and weary by   
the stress of his preparations, lighting up when he saw her. In two strides   
he had closed the distance between them -- i if only he could come to me so   
easily when he is gone /i -- and swept her up in his arms, strengthened by   
sword practice, his fingers made clever and gentle by holding a pen. Their   
parents had always insisted that their children receive the best possible   
education in all ways, and Yukino had applied herself well, once her brother   
had given his approval.   
  
The samurai put her down with a little moue. "Gomen," he said with a grin.   
"You are a lady, and that is not how a lady is treated." He was about to drop   
into seiza, to give her an elaborate bow, but she stopped him.   
  
i I almost never get to look him in the eye... he's so tall! /i She just   
wrapped her arms around her brother's neck and hugged him close.   
  
For as long as she could remember, her brother had been there for her. When   
the children of the town had called her a freak, two summers ago when her pet   
died in a fire that consumed a hay barn and a snowstorm descended in the   
middle of summer to extinguish the raging flames too late, he had been there   
to make sure she wasn't bullied. When she found herself swamped by the stress   
of education, the characters on the scroll before her turning into a black   
morass of lines without meaning, he would take her away from her studies,   
telling her stories of the pilgrimage he made to nearby Mount Fuji when he   
had come of age, saying it was a shame that women weren't allowed to set foot   
there or he would surely bring her some day. He had comforted her, protected   
her... and now he was going away.   
  
i I will be facing life without you. How can I bear that? /i She clung on   
tighter, but would not cry. i I am a woman of a samurai household, and I   
will not cry.   
  
At least, not in front of him /i   
  
"Onii-sama, be careful," was all she said to him as she stepped back.   
  
He stood and looked down at her, still wearing that special smile she knew he   
kept just for her. i He's the only one who doesn't see me as a freak, the   
young girl who speaks like a woman... /i She could not tell him, of course,   
how she had wanted to outgrow her childhood faster, so she could be a woman   
in truth, and do him credit as the keeper of a household. There was no place   
in battle for a woman to prove herself, but she vowed she would do whatever   
it took to make her brother proud of her.   
  
i He is going to war to bring honour to my family. I cannot do any less. I   
will not cry, because it is a sign of weakness. No. Instead I will smile;   
smile for him, because it takes more courage, and more strength. And in that   
way shall I honour him. /i   
  
"I will be back soon, Yukino-chan," he promised, standing. Then, awkwardly,   
for he had never known quite how to carry himself around his quiet,   
otherworldly little sister, he slipped away, rejoining the friends he would   
be fighting beside.   
  
i Watching him go out into the wild outside that I know so little about...   
while I remain here in my own floating world. So far apart... /i   
  
Yukino watched them go, one of the poems she had so painstakingly remembered   
for him slipping easily into her mind, and in farewell tribute, she whispered   
it aloud.   
  
"The sunset's time,   
With clouds arrayed like banners   
And I think on this:   
What it means to love someone who lives   
Beyond my world."   
  
  
  
~Owari~   
  
Author's Note:   
Now for a note longer than the fic ^_^ Well, that's life for you.   
Anyhow, why Yukino? Besides the fact that she was the most intriguing   
and least covered character in the whole anime? Even -Shirei- had more   
background information supplied than Yukino-chan.   
She basically intrigues me the most. The only scene of her past you   
get to see is the oft-repeated one featuring her brother leaving her (he -is-   
her brother, isn't he?) and it's one of the most memorable for me too.   
As for my favourites... well, my favourite is actually Reiko. She   
reminds me of a certain spaced-out samurai, de gozaru yo ^_^x She's just   
hilarious. She'd make an excellent wife too, although her fitness to be a   
mother is questionable. Feye (Fei, Fay, whatever) is impossibly cute, and   
Kurogane-san is one of the -the- coolest anime females I have seen since Rei   
Ayanami. Kaoru and Ruriko come in distant seconds. Too common, I'm afraid.   
  
That should cover it for now. I've never written an anime fic before,   
so please, be gentle. It's my first time. C&C, but no pointing and laughing   
please, my ego is frail enough.   
  
Acknowledgement:   
I first encountered the poem that inspired the title and is quoted by   
Yukino in Lucia St. Claire Robson's gem of a literary contribution,   
Tokaido. Gomen to the poet and those who know of it -- it's imperfectly   
remembered, I know.   
And the phrase 'floating world' has been used too many times before,   
I know. Again, gomen. 


End file.
